Wilbur

Please can someone post the link to the podcast? I cannot get to it through the Times site. Thank you!

Thank you for posting that interesting article!

I haven't enjoyed watching the Reds play this much for fifteen years. Excellent football, flowing, controlling, aggressive. Wow. One thing that really strikes me this season is how differently our defenders are playing. Liverpool defenders for years have played in that flat-back four that seems like it should have Tony Adams in it raising his arm every thirteen seconds. Boring and effective and rigid as a ruler. This year however, the fullbacks are overlapping like crazy, and in this match both Arbeloa and Finnan have been in the opposition's box more than once. Furthermore, instead of the two centre-halves being ten yards apart or less, Hyppia and Agger are frequently way out wide where the fullbacks normally are. In addition, look at how far up the pitch the centre-halves are! Sami's been playing balls from ten yards on the other side of the half-way line very frequently in the matches he has played, and Agger drags the ball around the pitch as if it was "Pretend I am Alonso" day. With this new freedom for the defenders, Pennant running wild on the wings and supplying multiple promising balls into the mixer, it is very exciting to watch. Of course, we will all weep and moan the first time we get caught out and concede, but I still like it. In the front, I think we can all see now why Rafa persists with Kuyt. He really does wll to bring the rest of the attackers into the game, distributing the ball well and causing the defenders a lot of problems. He also gets himself in position to score, and makes chances out of balls behind him and to the side that some players couldn't direct goal-wards. Voronin and Torres both had goal-hanger chances today, which was nice - Voronin put his away, which was even nicer. The best part, however, was having three strikers on while being up by six. Do you not like that?

Ha! This has to be the best shout in the thread!

How many goals have been scored in te pre-season matches after Riise has pushed into a forward position and crossed? Of course, that has never been a problem for him, it is more a defensive frailty that concerns fans.

And perhaps she could get his suit altered to fit him a little better.

I think Hysen's performance issues were: 1. Age 2. Coming from Italy He was a very good player when he arrived (see the youtube for a game I remember well and his deft performance), but the number of matches played his first season caught up with him. Because of his age, he took longer and longer to recover after a match. Because he had been playing in Italy, he was not used the much larger number of matches he played in his first year at Anfield. He performances began to slide, getting poorer and poorer, and you could see his discomfort in his stride out on the field. The Fleck match was one that seemed to show him as "tired" rather than unskilled, in my opinion. A lesser factor was that he was actually good on the ball, much like Hansen, but I also felt that he expected everyone else to be good on the ball as well. With Hansen gone, and some of the better players around him being pulled out of the side by the manager, he seemed to lose confidence. Was it because of the the Fleck match, or because the pressure of being the only ball-playing defensive player became too much? Finally, as everyone has noted, the Reds weren't exactly full of fresh-legged quality in his final year, and that heaped more pressure on him. It was like you could see what he wanted to do, but he just couldn't quite manage it anymore, or his teammates were a step slower to react when he did pull something off nicely. It was the beggining of the Dark Years...

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I agree. Speaking as a central defender, when the match is going your way, it is relatively easy to hand off the ball to the nearest midfielder and let them go to work, since it has been successful so far. The emotional cost is low. When things are not going well, you want to change the game, so you press to hard and try to win the game yourself with that great long, floated pass behind the defenders. Now of course, you also hope that the opposition does this in return, since you can head those useless balls out all day long, but you always think emotionally when you are down that YOUR long ball will be different, better, a game winner. The emotional cost of the short pass to the ineffectual midfielder five yards away goes way up when you are down. Happens all the time, no matter what you do to try and discipline yourself not to.

Hypothetically, if we have Trezuguet on the team, do you think he and Robbie can play together?

Why are the fans in fancy dress arrested?